2025 XPeng G6 Long Range review - Long-term owner

Multimedia and safety technology: 4/10

The infotainment system is decent, it is responsive and of high resolution. However, like a lot of new vehicles, it places too many functions into the screen creating a distracted driving environment. The car does come with shortcuts for the climate control (fan and temperature) on the left side of the steering wheel. However on my car, I found the controls to be odd, scrolling through the temp took a long time and the buttons for adjusting fan speed sometimes didn't work and required multiple presses. My car also had an odd glitch where the 360 camera/back-up camera display would lag heavily in underground car parks. I can only come to the conclusion that it has something to do with the in-built wifi reception. However, I can't figure out a reason why the camera and reception would have a connection with each other.

The safety systems in the car are nothing special compared to competitors. The "semi autonomous driving" falls quite short. You would expect for a car that talks about all of its cameras and sensors that it would perform exceptionally - but it doesn't. Frequent phantom braking on the freeway, bouncing off the lane markings, slowing down dramatically in corners. It performs badly compared to competitors. Multiple occasions of the car slamming the brakes on when it couldn't recognise a situation, such as going around a bend on the freeway or the (I assume vision based obstacle avoidance system) picking up the barrier along the freeway as an obstacle and hitting the brakes.

The system also fails in basic functions such as changing lanes with cruise control active. In most vehicles, when activating your indicator to change lanes, the lane-keeping systems will deactivate to allow you to change lanes. Not in the G6. The car will wrestle you back into your current lane. Why this is a thing is beyond me. I have to deactivate cruise, change lanes and then reactivate cruise (which can take multiple attempts). It's cumbersome and unnecessary.

The rain sensing wipers are also a joke, they wipe in the sun and don't wipe in the rain.

I will give credit where it's due, though, the 18-speaker sound system (with tuning in the sound settings) sounds fantastic. It's not a name brand system, so don't expect Harman Kardon or Bose quality. But it is quite good.

Overall, the tech in the car is disappointing. There is so much marketing towards the vehicle being high tech and luxurious. However is lacks basic features and the features you would expect to be outstanding, are disappointing. Especially considering its positioned as a direct Tesla Model Y competitor.

Practicality: 8/10

The car is spacious. Centre console bin is massive, and there is storage under the centre console as well. Big door pockets as well. Storage in the rear is decent with pockets on the back of the driver and passenger seats as well as average sized door pockets. The boot is huge, plenty of space for everything you would need for a road trip. No frunk, however. Which is disappointing. And no glovebox. Yes, there is no glovebox.

Driving: 7/10

The car drives quite well. It's smooth, riding over bumps well, considering it has 20-inch wheels. It has extremely light steering. Even on its heaviest setting it's still quite light. Which for some is a positive, and for some its a negative. However, one feature of EVs is the regenerative braking, of which the G6 has a poorly tuned regenerative braking. It's quite jerky and not very smooth. I've had a few EVs now. A Kona, Polestar 2 (best regenerative experience) and now an ID.4. All these vehicles have smoother regenerative systems than the G6. I found myself driving with the auto regen turned off 99% of the time.

Running costs: 7/10

Being electric it doesn't cost a lot to run. And being surprisingly efficient, it gets quite a decent amount of range per charge. However, disappointingly it is a once a year service, which for an EV is odd. Most are every two years now. So servicing costs compared to others would be higher. I didn't keep the car long enough to have it serviced.

Reliability: 5/10

I had a lot of rattles in my G6. And issues with the camera on the infotainment screen. But I only had the car for 7 months, so I can't speak for the long-term reliability. But if the six different rattles from the B-pillars and rear passenger doors are anything to go off, I wouldn't expect it to be the most reliable EV out there from the build quality point of view.